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  • Profiles in Cowardice with the Caucus of the Craven

    The Atlantic has a good piece out called A Study in Senate Cowardice. It’s worth a read for those who haven’t been paying attention, and I hope some do. But it’s old news and much like saying water is wet.

    Perhaps they’ve removed all of the mirrors in their homes, because I don’t know how these Senators  can bear seeing their own reflections. We’re surrounded and governed by cowards. But it’s not just the politicians who are  cowards.

    Journalists could hang some of their own mugshots on this cover artwork from the Atlantic pictured above. There was an election in 2022 and some pictured above stood for office at the time. Where was this article then?  It could have been written at any point since the Senate voted not to convict Trump after January 6th. Most know it. Too many don’t seem to care. And yet, here we are.

    Go-along-to-get-along is the age-old anthem sung by cowards and should be the new motto of the U.S. Senate.

    You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

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  • Confrontation Nation

    Judges. Pastors. Politicians. Every day Joe and every day Jane. People feel threatened by rhetoric spewing out of mouths like lava out of a volcano. It’s an insult to the concept of rhetoric, just another in the long list of “life as we knew it” torched by the angry mob.

    The threats multiply daily and there’s no system or institution that can contain them so we might as well quit pretending and waiting around for the fire brigade. Like it or not the decaying orange turd and his worshippers are taking everything down with them. Scorched earth. It’s only going to get worse and there’s no “before it gets better” on the horizon.

    The intimidation tactics and strategy have worked far too well. Judges can toss down a gag order, but they’re doing so behind security details and burdened by a judicial system that’s melting under the heat and buckling under its own burden. Pastors can preach for patience and penitence, but those that follow the lessons of scripture are being overwhelmed and overmatched by their own brethren who’ve reduced to ashes the messages of the Gospel, or any other good book, while profiting from the pulpit. As for politicians, let’s just say I don’t think there are anymore feet remaining worth holding to the fire.

    This approaching calamity too many are trying to avoid is coming one way or the other. It’s just a matter of when.

    You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

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  • Slam! Destroy! What’s With This Boring Bullshit SEO Headline Writing?

    Whether it was “Pow!” or “Bam! Zoom!” it was usually the preface to “Right in the Kisser!” That’s what Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Cramden would exclaim to his wife Alice in The Honeymooners when she got under his skin. For some reason SEO experts think we’re attracted to this kind of cartoonish, wrestlemania-type of violence and have slobbishly skewed that assumption into the seemingly never ending stream of headlines saying “So and So Slams So and So” or “So and So Destroys So and So.” Internet publications and ad mills have followed the gravy train right along. “Rips,” “blasts,” and “bashes” also seem popular.

    This type of click bait headline writing has become so ever present, overused, and tired that it has certainly lost all meaning to anyone except the chronically bored or the algorithmically programmed. As lazy as it is, I guess it works. Which is not only a sad commentary on humanity but a sadder one on algorithms and the SEO industry.

    I mean where’s the creativity? Why not use “lambasts,” “harangues,” “admonishes,” “berates,” “objurgates?” Or for those with syllabaphobia how about “dress down,” “haul over the coals,” “lays into,” “lace into, or “slag off?” 

    And just imagine how many of those boringly inept and inutile headlines are being fed into AI training engines. 

    You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

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  • Sunday Morning Reading

    The price of chocolate is through the roof and even ideas seem to be melting away in some fashion or the other in this Easter edition of Sunday Morning Reading. 

    Leading off this Easter Sunday morning it appears the price of cocoa is soaring leading to worry for chocolate makers and chocolate lovers. Aliina Selyukh covers it in Pricier Easter Bunnies and Eggs. Half-Dipped Kit Kats. What’s Up with Chocolate?

    Much of this week’s news was dominated by the Baltimore maritime disaster at the Francis Scott Key Bridge. This is an fascinating take from Will Bunch: A Ship Crashed Into a Baltimore Bridge and Demolished the Lies About Immigration.

    Less fascinating perhaps, but also timely,  A.W Ohlheiser says The Slow Death of Twitter Is Measured in Disasters Like the Baltimore Bridge Collapse.

    David Todd McCarty tackles the power and the mystery of ideas in The Idea of Things.

    Moving into the poltical world Marc O. De Girolami may be late to the party but he’s correct when he says Something Other Than Originalism Explains This Supreme Court.

    Perhaps the most important political piece written this week comes from Chris Quinn, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Check out Our Tump Reporting Upsets Some Reades But There Aren’t Two Sides To Facts: Letter From the Editor. Better yet, forward it on to the editor, publishers, and programmers of your local media sources. 

    Andres Marantz wonders Why We Can’t Stop Arguing About Whether Trump Is A Facist. It begs the question as to who is arguing this anymore, but it’s a good read. 

    Will Knight takes a look Inside The Creation of the World’s Most Powerful Open Source AI Model. 

    Meanwhile Erik Hoel says A.I.-Generated Garbage Is Polluting Our Culture. 

    And to round out this week’s edition, Catherine Rampbell tells us The Internet Was Supposed To Make Humanity Smarter. It’s Failing. 

    If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

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  • Collapsing Bridges and Bridging Analogies

    The images from the maritime disaster in Baltimore’s harbor this week certainly caused a collective gasp from everyone who saw it. The quantity and volume of gasps have continued in the relatively short time span since the Dali hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge. As we’ve heard how costly and much time it will take to demo the wreckage, reopen the harbor, and rebuild the bridge, the magnitude of the hard work needed to navigate the challenges ahead is hard to really grasp, but we know that those challenges can be overcome.

    Even so, this bridge collapse and the reaction to it seems analogous, yet in an almost incongruent way, to the slow motion collapse we’re living through of all of the guardrails we’ve built up in American society.

    Most of those guardrails already lie in a heap of debris and the rest seem to be hanging on by mere threads just waiting to unravel. Frankly, I waver back and forth wondering if it’s possible to rebuild those guardrails or not. Physcial things can be replaced. Societies built on common understandings, traditions, rules, and experiences, not so much. Once the keystones begin to decay the arches eventually fall.

    Bringing back what we have already lost will require a rebuild as substantial, if not more so, than what needs to happen in the Baltimore harbor. And nothing rebuilt is ever the same as what it replaces. Society’s guardrails have been as forever crumpled as what remains of the Key Bridge.

    As Rick Wilson is famously fond of saying, Everything Trump Touches Dies (ETTD) and the casualty list is long: the media, the justice system, Congress, political parties, civil discourse, social media, and on it goes. What isn’t dead has already been infected beyond cure. And watching those willingly accept their own demise is as twisted as is this sentence describing it.

    We were far too complacent with those guardrails, far too passive when we first felt them begin to erode, and far too comfortable to push course corrections or implement further protections.

    You never think about the ground underneath you until it collapses and takes you with it.

    You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

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  • Problematic 3 Body Problem

    I both enjoyed and was ultimately left frustrated by 3 Body Problem, the Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem. Thanks to fellow Mastodonian Ricki Tarr I was finally able to put my finger on the source of my frustration.

    Set aside the twists and turns through physics, politics, battles with cancer, romance, and everything else this story throws at you. The fundamental fight focuses on  humans who understand that an alien race is coming in 400 years to wipe out our civilization.  The aliens are doing so to save their own.

    Given that we’re a species that can’t deal with more immediate threats currently facing us in far closer futures it’s hard to imagine trying to marshall the solidarity and resources to try and stave off a threat 400 years in the future. And that’s not even the problem in the title.

    There’s not too much discussion of that in the show. Which is probably a good thing for how the storytellers want to unfold their story. But it puts us at a remove that left me and my wife joking throughout the series that Netflix has 400 years to unravel this tale.

    Once the alien threat is revealed to all there are the usual sci-fi tropes about how those under threat deal with all such threats, but things quickly focus back on the main characters and their attempts to try and change what’s coming. As far as this adaptation is concerned everyone panics, reacts and then essentially shrugs and leaves it to a group of smart guys and gals to figure out.

    I kept waiting for the 3 Body Problem metaphor to manifest in main character chaotic orbits as their arcs developed, but their orbital paths were all too damn predictable to cause the sort of friction that might have ignited the story, much less take hold with any metaphorical meaning.

    As I said in the beginning I took some enjoyment from the experience. Some of the individual threads were captivating in and of themselves, but ultimately not enough to recommend the whole.

    You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

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  • Baseball Kicks Off Today

    The 2024 Major League Baseball season starts today. Well, sorta, kinda. The Dodgers and the Padres played a couple of games last week in Korea that are considered regular season games. Except where a few scheduled games already rained out, the rest of the MLB season kicks off today.

    Here’s hoping for good games throughout the 162 regular season. But remember, every team wins 60, every team loses 60. It’s what happens with the remaining 42 that matter.

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  • Stocks, Shoes, and Bible Bunkum

    A fool and his money are soon parted the saying goes. That’s obviously an understatement that didn’t come close to anticipating the gullibility of large swathes of the American public. There are obviously flocks of fools out there begging to be fleeced by this conman-in-chief Donald Trump. In the last few weeks, supposedly facing financial peril due to the increasingly large legal fees and judgments against him, he’s managed to roll out sales pitches for trashy shoes, launch an IPO for his solipsistic social media network, and now bibles. I just don’t get the fascination with throwing good money after such bad bunkum.

    It makes you wonder if all of these folks somehow drank Trump branded water or ate Trump steaks at some point in their lives that contained some sort of additive that bound them to him in some weird way. That makes it sound like bad fiction, but I just find it hard to believe that there are enough minutes in any given day for this many suckers to be born.

    Sure, some folks are going to make some money from the Truth Social stock deal. Many more will lose their shirts. I imagine those Trump bibles will one day get passed down through a few familes here and there. Everyone needs a door stop or two. I can’t comment on the shoes, because there’s no rational excuse for anyone who thinks that’s a remotely attractive way to spend money or adorn their feet. But the conman who owns the courts, bilks his creditors, and gives lie to the concept of shame, just keeps on conning and his flock keeps lining up to be sheered.

    If we saw any or all of this in a movie or TV show most would change the channel. But then Reality TV is how this whole thing kicked off in the first place.

    We are not serious people. But this guy is a serious serial shyster.

    You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

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  • There’s No Happy Endings For This Trump Fairy Tale

    Yowsa did the howls go up! Trump’s bond in the civil fraud case got reduced on appeal from $454 million to $175 million and he got a ten-day stay before he has to cough up the dough. If the intital judgment had been for $175 million instead of $454 million I’d bet we see this differently today if that  amount had been upheld. But that’s fiction. In a werid Sartre-esque reality show of our own making. And it shouldn’t be surprising.

    That’s how screwed up we’ve allowed this sad excuse of a man to warp most of the world around us. On every conceivable level. We can continue to pretend the institutions we’ve relied on will offer some protections from the likes of this decaying orange turd and someday after he’s gone the world returns to a better place. But he’s crushed any hopes of that. At least for a few generations. Besides it’s a fiction he’s exposed, not one he’s created. Most fairy tales don’t end with happily ever after.

    Yes, this vedict is a lifeline. Yes, it seems like he’s getting a break. And you know what? He is. And he will continue to get them. He might one day be held accountable for all of this, but I’m betting not whle he’s still breathing. Life ain’t fair damnit, especially when you’re trying to play by the rules and the other side doesn’t give fuck all about rules.

    One of these days we’ll learn that. It will be messy. But at least it’ll be more honest.

    Meanwhile: The judge in the porn star hush money case that trial will begin jury selection on April 15th. And so it goes.

    You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

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  • Sunday Morning Reading

    It’s a Spring Sunday morning in Chicago. Nippy temps frustrate the daffodils that keep brushing off the snowflakes. As confusing as the weather may be, it’s also quite normal. That fine line between confusing/normal runs through a lot of this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. Mostly tech, some music, some marketing, some fear, and a troll or two, Enjoy!

    The big tech news this week was the U.S. going after Apple as a monopoly. It’s brought out the the explainers and turned legions of Apple fan boys into anti-trust lawyers. Even the lawyers are going to need lawyers to figure this one out in my view. One of the best early inning reactions to this was from Jason Snell at Six Colors in U.S. versus Apple: A First Reaction.

    When Marketing is everything, everything eventually gets reductive. Doc Searls of The Cluetrain Manifesto fame tackles this in Getting Us Wrong, a piece from December that recently resurfaced in my feeds and is always a timely read. So too is The Cluetrain Manifesto. 

    The Disparity Between Fear And Progress by David Todd McCarty strikes a chord (actually chords) that I think many of us hear vibrating these days. 

    Grim Tales, Fairy Dusts And All That Makes Us Gullible At Bedtime by NatashaMH jumps into the space between wanting to know and suspending disbelief. An interesting troll on it’s own. 

    Social Media always seems to be at war with itself over most things, misinformation being one in a long list. I’m not sure Social Media presents more or less of that than other means of socialization, but Scott Duke Kominers and Jesse Shapiro think It’s Time To Give Up On Ending Social Media’s Misinformation Problem.

    Joan Westenberg thinks the creator economy is a dead end for most creators. Is there an alternative? Check out The Creator Economy Trap: Why Building On Someone Else’s Platform Is A Dead End.

    Musician and composer Stan Stewart thinks it’s dangerous to explain something before he does it, but he does so anyway in I’ve Got Some Explaining To Do. With all that’s going on in the world there’s something cooking up inside of Stan and I’m looking forward to the music that comes from this. 

    Christopher Mims spent a couple of weeks using AI tools to do his work and comes out convinced we’re on the cusp of a ‘Cognitive Revolution.’ As he puts it: “Here’s my verdict: The last time I had an experience this eye-opening and transformative was after I bought my first smartphone.” Check out his thoughts in Want To Know If AI Will Take Your Job? I Tried Using It To Replace Myself.

    If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

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